Control of troops?

[vonduus]

Hi guys.

I am kind of new to this particular game, Men of War. I played a lot of Soldiers back then, but when I went from XP to Win7, Soldiers refused to load, due to some lame DRM. So I thought that was the end of a great game. I hate DRM, especially Starforce drivers.

But then I learned that Soldiers lives on, now the game is called MoW. Yippie, I thought, but then I wondered if MoW was as hard and unforgiving as Soldiers? Or had the developers succumbed to the cry of the arcade-loving masses? I bought the game anyway (from GamersGate, to avoid giving any of my money to DRM-developers - and the game was on a sale). Imagine my joy, when it turned out that my very first experience with MoW was getting all my soldiers killed within 30 seconds. On easy, that is.

So I am a very happy gamer. One of the best games ever is back on my computer, under a new name. The interface is the same bloody mess I remember from Soldiers, half the time I loose because i fumble with the controls. But this is only a question of time before I remember it all by heart. And to be fair, a lot of quirks has been ironed out (I just love the new one-click repair routine).

Now my question to the hardcore gamers:

One of the big differences is the scope of the game. In Soldiers most of the time I had control over 4-6 infantry units, and/or 1-2 tanks. That was difficult, it took a long time to master. In MoW it seems that half the scenarios are mega-monsters, where you control 20+ units. How do you manage this amount of units during the game?

I am using control groups. I am using the squad control features, but I cannot decide on which mode I prefer, Standard mode is nice, because it does not mess up your preconceived squad structure, but on some of those mega-monster defensive scenarios I shift to Alternative mode. In these situations it is better to just create ad hoc squads from whoever survives and pull those back in reserve, while a former reserve squad takes over the sector. Or is it? Mostly it all ends up in chaos. And just when I am sure this is it, now I have lost, I get the message: Mission completed.

It is nice to win, but I prefer to win/loose consistently, ie. because I am the better/worse tactician, not just because I was having a lot of lucky mouse-clicks that day.

So what do other people actually do, when they control 20+ troops? This is a question of organisation, not of tactics. I hope some of you will share some of your managerial wisdom with me.


PS Bonus question: Is there a way to quickly select ALL units and tell them NOT to move around the whole map on their own?